There has been a considerable amount of work in the field of flavorant material for use in orally utilized compositions. It is often desirable to provide these flavorant materials in a form that is less volatile and in more stable, thus avoiding loss or degradation. A technique commonly employed in this regard, is the encapsulation of the active ingredient within a shell of a material designed to provide a complete coating around particles of the active ingredient. Such encapsulation procedures usually require the use of solutions or dispersions of the coating material, and the use of spray drying or drum drying procedures for the application of the coating material to the particles of interest (substrate).
Such procedures, however, are basically limited to being useful only with those types of coating materials which are readily soluble in one or more solvents and/or those coating systems which can be readily dried without subjecting the active ingredient to any adverse heat or stringent solvent conditions. Such prior art systems are, for the most part, not useful with elastomers. Further, such prior art encapsulation systems tend to be limited in terms of the length of time that they can delay or extend the release of the active ingredients, i.e., usually only over a period of up to about five to ten minutes, at most. Further, in many cases, where the active ingredient is released from such encapsulating agents it may only be released in a single burst of the active ingredient. Also, each of the prior art means available for encapsulating active ingredients tend to be limited, respectively, in terms of the active ingredients with which they can be used and/or with respect to the chewable products in which they can be employed.
One example of the use of encapsulated materials is the use of the encapsulated materials with smokeless tobaccos. Smokeless tobaccos are products that are orally consumed without subjecting the product to combustion. These products are manufactured in a variety of forms including chewing tobacco, dry snuff and moist snuff. Generally, these types of products are made as follows with the steps being in no particular order: cutting or grinding the tobacco into a suitable size; dipping or spraying the tobacco with a casing solution; partially drying the cased tobacco; holding the tobacco in containers for a period of time; and packaging it.
Chewing tobacco is typically sold in one of three forms: a “plug” where the tobacco is compressed into one of any number of shapes; “twists”, where leaves are entwined into a rope-shaped product; and loose, leafy chewing tobacco where it is presented in an envelop-like container. Plugs typically have a moisture content around 15% or less by volume for “hard” plugs and greater than 15% for “soft” plugs. Twists and loose, leafy material are typically lower in moisture.
As stated previously, snuffs typically are marketed as either “dry” or “moist”. Dry snuffs are generally finely ground, almost powdery, and typically have moisture contents around 8%. Moist snuffs, which typically have about 40 to 60% moisture content can have a variety of particle sizes depending on the product.
Some users of chewing tobacco and/or snuff compositions notice certain negative flavor characteristics associated with bitterness, astringency, acridness, tobacco flavor, and aftertaste. Chewing tobacco and snuffs are often treated with a variety of flavors to overcome the negative taste characteristics sometimes associated therewith.
Flavors that are added to tobacco products may be classified into two groups: a primary flavor as a casing sauce and a secondary flavor as a top flavor. Both kinds of flavors are generally added directly to the shredded tobacco by means of spraying during the preparation process of tobacco products.
Many of the flavors used with tobacco are volatile so that they readily diffuse. This volatility may result in unwanted aroma around where the product is stored and may effect the flavor of other products stored near the tobacco. Further, many flavors deteriorate during product preparation and subsequent product storage. Due to expected volatilization and deterioration tobacco products may be prepared with excess amounts of flavoring to compensate for the expected loss.
Hence, the need exists to provide an encapsualted material for coating substrates where these compositions are any orally utilized composition. Further, a need exists to provide a tobacco product and process for its preparation that minimizes flavor volatilization and deterioration.